The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum: documenting the life and accomplishments of the 33rd president, an often underestimated "everyman," whose unflinching, momentous decisions still reverberate.

HARRY S. TRUMAN, here in 1949 riding in the back of a convertible, with his trademark hat, glass and confidence grin. All photographs courtesy Truman library archives

By LINDA LOTRIDGE LEVINRhode Island Library ReportOn April 12, 1945, Vice President Harry S. Truman asked his secretary to type a letter to the owner of the Washington Senators baseball team thanking him for sending tickets for the Opening Day game with the New York Yankees on April 20, saying he would be bringing “a carload” to the game. But a note written in Truman’s hand at the end of the letter later that day says, “We must postpone it now. I’m up to my neck and must think of my terrible responsibilities for some days to come."

This happened to be the day that Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, died at his home in Warm Springs, Georgia. But when Truman, who under the Constitution also was the president of the U.S. Senate, wrote the letter, he had no idea his life would change forever. In fact, later that afternoon he had been in the private hideaway of the speaker of the House on the ground floor of the Capitol about to mix himself a drink when he was told to contact FDR’s press secretary, Steve Early.

First he made the drink, then he telephoned Early, who told him to “come to the White House as quickly and as quietly as you can.” Truman thought Early’s voice sounded “tense and strange.” But he said he refused to allow himself to consider that this would be anything other than some important issue the White House was dealing with while the president was away. When he arrived at the White House, he learned of FDR’s death. Harry Truman was now the 33rd president of the United States.

“Come to the White House as quickly and as quietly as you can.” _ Message to then-Vice President Harry Truman, April 12, 1945

﻿Truman’s presidency﻿ began with “what if’s.” What if FDR had kept his previous vice president, Henry Wallace, on the Democratic ticket in 1944 instead of selecting a senator from Missouri who was virtually unknown to the general public? What if Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican candidate, had defeated Roosevelt in that election? What if FDR had served out his term instead of dying a few months after his inauguration for a fourth term? Until the Democratic convention in the summer of 1944, Harry Truman had been quite content to serve his state as one of its two United States senators for the last ten years. Although he began his political career with the help of the Kansas City Democratic boss, Tom Pendergast, who later was convicted of tax evasion, by the time Truman reached the Senate he was considered his own man. He achieved some prominence during the war as the chairman of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. The committee proved successful in finding and correcting problems with war profiteering and waste and inefficiency in the government during the war. The Truman Committee, as it was commonly called, was the main reason that President Roosevelt saw Senator Truman as his successor.

Truman's Circuitous Road to the U.S. Senate

YOUNG Harry Truman

Harry Truman was born on May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Mo., near Independence, Mo., now a suburb of Kansas City. His family moved several times, finally settling on a farm in Independence when Harry was six years old. Not particularly athletic, he was a shy boy who wore glasses and when he was not doing farm chores, he spent hours reading books. While he loved learning, his education stopped once he graduated from high school. After that he worked for a while at odd jobs in and around Independence, and then he spent 10 years helping his father run the family farm. In 1905 he joined the National Guard, the best alternative he had to attending West Point, his dream while in high school. Poor eyesight kept him out of the military academy; and after apparently being first rejected from the Guard because of his eyesight, he memorized the eye chart, retook the test, and passed. When the United States entered World War I, Truman’s Guard unit was sent to France, where it fought in some of the bloodiest battles of the war. The popular and respected Truman soon became Captain Harry. After the war, Harry married his high school sweetheart, Bess Wallace. He was 35, she was 34. Truman said he first saw Bess in Sunday school in 1890; he was six years old and she was five. “I saw a beautiful curly haired girl there,” Truman remembered years later. “I thought (and still think) she was the most beautiful girl I ever saw. She had tanned skin[,] blond hair, golden as sunshine, and the most beautiful blue eyes I’ve ever seen or ever will see.” All his life Truman said he fell in love with Bess right there in Sunday school and never changed his mind.After two miscarriages, Bess gave birth to their daughter and only child, Margaret. Harry was 40. Around this time, he and an Army buddy opened a men’s haberdashery store called Truman & Jacobson in Kansas City, Mo. After two years, the postwar recession put them out of business.

HARRY AND BESS on their wedding day

He needed to earn a living so he turned to Tom Pendergast, the Kansas City political boss with whose nephew he had been friendly during the war. Pendergast thought Harry would make a fine officeholder, so he put him up for judge of the Jackson County Court, a nonjudicial post that had jurisdiction over the building and upkeep of the county roads and public buildings. Two years later Truman lost his bid for re-election during the Harding-Coolidge landslide. So he sold automobile club memberships for a few years, concluding that his best bet for economic stability lay not in politics but in the private sector. However, once Roosevelt was elected to his first term in 1932, the Pendergast machine helped Truman get a job with a New Deal agency in Missouri.

This lasted two years. Once again the Pendergast machine approached him, this time suggesting he run for United States senator. He handily won in the 1934 election. Years later, Truman insisted that he always was his own man, despite his ties to Pendergast.

The Truman Presidency

Truman found that taking over from a popular president was not easy. He had been the vice president for less than three months, and while his relationship with Roosevelt generally was good, Truman was uninformed about the progress of the war, and he had been told nothing about the development of the atomic bomb. So when he told the owner of the Washington Senators that he was up to his neck, he was not joking. In Truman’s obituary, the New York Times said of his presidency: “These events, over which he presided and on which he placed his indelible imprint, were among the most momentous in national and world history, for they took place in the shadow and the hope of the Atomic Age, whose beginning coincided with Truman's accession. And during his eight years in office, the outlines of the cold war were fashioned.” As president, Truman’s first decision was to ensure that the first meeting of the United Nations would be held later that month in San Francisco. The U.N. had been a dream of FDR’s, and representatives from 50 governments were expected to attend the meeting, at which the United Nations charter was drafted. Truman insisted the event go on as planned. Then he needed to decide what to do with Roosevelt’s Cabinet. That was easy, he later admitted: He kept them all on, although, not surprisingly, some soon began to resign; others he had to fire when they failed to carry out his policies. The war was winding down on both the European and the Pacific fronts. On May 7 Germany surrendered. But what was the United States to do about ending the fighting in the Far East? The American military predicted it could last another year. On President Truman’s desk sat a small sign that said, “The buck stops here.” The decisions of his presidency, he recognized, were his, and the one he made in August of 1945 to bring Japan to its knees was his most difficult and, as the years went by, his most controversial. A group of scientists had been working on a way to purify the element uranium-235 and use it to make a bomb so powerful it could destroy a city. In early 1940 President Roosevelt was told of the bomb, but it remained a secret from the public. Even President Truman did not learn of it until a few weeks after he was sworn into office. When the Japanese army refused to surrender, Truman decided to use the bomb.On Aug. 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, and three days later another was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. The Japanese surrendered.

Now it was time for Congress and the president working with the fledgling United Nations to figure out how to rebuild war-torn Europe. First came the Truman Doctrine, which would give military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey to ensure that they would not be taken over by the Soviet Union. Historians believe this was the beginning of the Cold War. This was followed by the Marshall Plan, named after Secretary of State George Marshall, a complex economic program to help to rebuild all war-ravaged European countries. Then in 1948, Truman oversaw the airlift of medical and food supplies into Berlin. The Soviets had blocked access to the areas of the city controlled by the Western Allies in hopes of forcing them to withdraw from the city.

THE CLOUD from the Hiroshima atomic bomb

TRUMAN, holding a newspaper with its famously wrong headline about the 1948 election, which he had been widely expected to lose.

The airlift was successful, and it is thought that this achievement helped significantly in ensuring President Truman’s re-election in 1948.This election is still considered one of the biggest upsets in presidential politics. The Republicans had a number of potential candidates, including General Dwight Eisenhower, who had commanded the Allied forces in Europe, but he said he did not believe that a military man should be involved in politics.

The GOP then turned to Thomas E. Dewey, the former governor of New York who had lost to FDR in the 1944 election. Dewey selected the popular governor of California, Earl Warren, as his running mate. Truman’s campaign by train covered 31,700 miles, and it included 256 speeches – 16 in one day once. More than 12 million people turned out to see him. “I simply told the people in my own language,” he said later, “that they had better wake up to the fact that it was their fight.” Despite the president’s “whistle stop campaign,” political pundits predicted a big win for Dewey. And, according to the headlines in a number of newspapers on the morning after the election, Dewey did win.

MEETING with Gen. Douglas MacArthur, whom he later fired as Korea commander

The one that has become most reproduced appeared in the Chicago Daily Tribune, whose publisher Col. Robert McCormick, was a conservative Republican. But Truman had appealed to farmers not to jeopardize their prosperity. To labor he vowed a fight to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act. To blacks he promised more civil rights. And, to everyone, he said he would carry on his domestic program “for the benefit of all the people.” Once he was officially elected president, Truman found himself and the country facing a war, the Korean Conflict (Congress never declared it a war). In June of 1950, Communist North Korea invaded South Korea. American troops, led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, one of the heroes of World War II, were sent to attempt to contain the spread of communism to South Korea and eventually other Far Eastern countries. But the general failed to follow the president’s military policies, and on April 1951, Truman relieved him of his command. According to David McCullough, Truman’s biographer, the president knew this would be an unpopular move, but he did not foresee the storm that ensued. The public was outraged. Newpapers carried page one headlines in large, heavy type: Truman Fires MacArthur. By the following February, the president’s public approval rating was 22 percent. It was not just a war Truman was looking at; the country was in the midst of rapidly increasing unemployment, a huge federal deficit, and unrest in the steel mills and coal mines that led to strikes. Not the least of his problems was the rise of a nearly unknown United States senator from Wisconsin named Joseph McCarthy who charged that Communists were infesting the government and the military. It was during his second term that Harry and Bess were forced to vacate the White House while it underwent major structural repairs. On Nov. 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalists tried unsuccessfully to enter Blair House, where the Trumans were temporarily living, in an attempt to assassinate the president. The attempt failed; one of the assassins and a police officer were killed.

It was not long after the 1948 election that Truman began telling close friends that he had no desire to run for re-election in 1951. Although he was eligible to run a second time, he chose to return to his home in Independence. Anyway, Bess had never been comfortable as First Lady. Unlike her predecessor, Eleanor Roosevelt, who enjoyed traveling around the world championing causes and acting in effect as her wheelchair-bound husband’s legs, Bess Truman was a homebody who eschewed social events whenever possible.

WHAT'S MISSING? In a rare moment without his glasses, President Truman gets a haircut

The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum

David McCullough wrote that there were two things Truman most wanted when he left the presidency: to become a grandfather and to establish his own library. Both took a while to come to fruition. On June 5, 1957, his daughter, Margaret, gave birth to a son. (Her husband was Clifton Daniel, a reporter and later an editor for the New York Times.) A month later, on July 6, the Truman Library was dedicated with former President Herbert Hoover, Chief Justice Earl Warren, and Eleanor Roosevelt in attendance.

Like his predecessor, Truman, who had a fascination with American history, decided that he needed a library to preserve the papers and memorabilia from his presidency. It would be in his hometown of Independence. In 1955 Congress passed the Presidential Libraries Act. It established a system under which private citizens could donate funds to build the library, which would be operated and maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Truman’s was the first library to be created under the provisions of the act. The city of Independence donated land on a hill facing U.S. 24 and overlooking the Kansas City skyline, a few blocks from the Truman home. Both are open to the public. While the former president had been giving a lot of thought to how his library might look, he could not quite make up his mind about the design. Finally, he suggested to the architects, a local company that the building might resemble his maternal grandfather’s farmhouse in Grandview, Missouri. Instead, it ended up looking more like something the modernist architect Frank Lloyd Wright might have designed. When it was completed, Truman said, “It’s got too much of that fellow (Wright) in it to suit me.”

The building is austere and as straightforward as Harry Truman, and maybe it does in some ways resemble his grandfather’s farmhouse. But it certainly lacks any sense of folksiness or rural character. It’s easy to see why Truman thought it was too modern. The long, one-story building is constructed of Indiana limestone. A basement adds storage for documents and memorabilia not on display. It encompasses 70,000 square feet and took two years to build at a cost of $1.8 million, which today would be about $15 million.

Truman frequently arrived at the library before the staff and would often answer the phone to give directions and answer questions, telling surprised callers that he was the “man himself.”

TRUMAN backed John F. Kennedy, joined him in Oval Office, Jan. 21, 1961

The money was raised from private donors. A $23 million renovation completed in 2001 added more glass to the nearly windowless building, which might just have appeased the former president. While he was alive, Truman spent most weekdays at the library writing, organizing some of his papers and personally training museum docents and conducting impromptu “press conferences” for visiting students. McCullough wrote that he frequently arrived before the staff and would often answer the phone to give directions and answer questions, telling surprised callers that he was the “man himself.” Visitors to the library can read Truman’s diary, including pages devoted to his decision to drop the atomic bombs. One exhibit deals with the monumental problems he faced when he took office: the end of the war against Germany, the signing of the United Nations Charter, the Potsdam Conference and dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. Exhibits look at postwar problems, such as housing and job shortages, rising consumer prices and various labor strikes. There are exhibits on Truman’s childhood, his marriage to Bess, his early political career, and his life after the presidency. The curators of the museum have ensured that children will get to know the 33rd president by incorporating activities just for them. A special exhibit titled “Spies, Lies, and Paranoia: Americans in Fear,” which looks at the Cold War, runs until Oct. 26, 2014. Truman’s post-presidential years included travel, sometimes as an emissary of the United States, and sometimes for pleasure. He endorsed John F. Kennedy for president in 1960 and undertook a cross-country campaign tour for him. After a few bouts of ill health, Harry Truman, the straight-talking, brook-no-nonsense president, died on Dec. 26, 1972, at the age of 88. Funeral services were held in the auditorium of his library, and he was buried in the courtyard. Bess died in 1982 and was buried alongside him. At 97, she was the longest-living first lady in the country’s history. After their daughter Margaret died in 2008, her cremated remains and those of her husband were buried in the courtyard.

Sites Associated with Harry S. Truman

The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum: 500 W. US Highway 24, Independence, MO 64050; email: truman.library@nara.gov ; phone: (816) 268-8200; (800) 833-1225. The Truman Home at 219 N. Delaware, Independence, where he and Bess lived for many years, is operated by the National Park Service and is open to the public. The Truman Family Farm in Grandview, Mo., is open to the public and is located at 12301 Blue Ridge Blvd.

THE HOME of Harry Truman's grandfather, Solomon Young, in nearby Grandview, MO

Author

Linda Lotridge Levin

LINDA LOTRIDGE LEVIN'S knowledge of presidential libraries comes in part from her first-hand experience as an author and scholar, which included her research at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum for her 2008 book about Stephen Early, Roosevelt’s press secretary.Levin for several decades has been a leading figure in shaping Rhode Island journalism as a reporter, author, professor and advocate for press freedom, and she was a pioneer in opening journalism to women when the field was dominated by men. A faculty member of the Department of Journalism at the University of Rhode Island since 1983, she was chair of the department from 2001 to 2011, and in that capacity, she has been responsible for the training of hundreds of the state’s and the nation’s journalists. Levin’s teaching areas include media law, history of American journalism, media criticism and advanced reporting. A former president of the Rhode Island Press Association, she has worked as a reporter and editor for the Providence Journal. She also worked as a freelance writer, specializing in health and medicine, and she wrote a nationally-syndicated column on the subjects. She won three grants to work with journalists in the Soviet Union and Russia, and she was a founder of ACCESS/ Rhode Island, an open government coalition. Levin was awarded the Yankee Quill Award by the New England Society of Newspaper Editors and the New England Society of Professional Journalists. She has been inducted into the Rhode Island Journalism Hall of Fame and the Academy of New England Journalists. She has been a fellow of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, the American Press Institute and the Annenberg Washington Program. Levin is the author and co-author of four books. Her latest is The Making of FDR, The Story of Stephen T. Early, America’s first Modern Press Secretary, published in 2008 by Prometheus Books. Publishers Weekly wrote that Levin “delivers a smart and definitive Early biography,” and it added that the book “ is a must-read for anyone interested in FDR and his era or in the power of presidential image makers.”This series is copyrighted by Linda Lotridge Levin

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